Coding Standard

The increasing number of contributors require that we clearly define coding rules and guidelines. Although for historical reasons the current code of Stellarium does not always comply to these rules, they should now be respected for any addition or modification of the code.

Contents

Stylistic Conventions

Source code should use ASCII character set. Characters such as 'é' or 'ö' are not portable when hardcoded. Gettext translated strings should be used for such characters.
Variable names and comments should be in english.

Class names are nouns, in mixed-case, with an initial upper-case letter and the ﬁrst letter of each subsequent word capitalized (e.g. CoreFactory).
Method names are verbs or nouns in mixed-case, starting with a lower-case letter (e.g. update() or addElement()).
Methods that return a value should take the form getSize().
The names of local variables should be in mixed case, starting with a lower-case letter (e.g. packetSize). This also applies to the formal parameters of methods. Do not use names starting with underscore.
The names of macro or static ﬁnal constants should be all upper-case words, separated by underscores (e.g. MIN_WIDTH).

Indentation should be done with tabs, not spaces. This enables each developers to use his favorite indent size without changing the code.

Use blank lines as follows:

• 1 between methods, before (block or single line) comment
• 1 between logical sections of a method
• 2 between sections of a source ﬁle